{"id":21229,"date":"2013-06-21T09:27:58","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T13:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=21229"},"modified":"2014-05-08T23:57:49","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T03:57:49","slug":"the-book-of-human-insects-by-osamu-tezuka-translated-by-mari-morimoto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-book-of-human-insects-by-osamu-tezuka-translated-by-mari-morimoto\/","title":{"rendered":"The Book of Human Insects by Osamu Tezuka, translated by Mari Morimoto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2013\/06\/Book-of-Human-Insects.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-26463\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2013\/06\/book-of-human-insects.jpg\" alt=\"Book of Human Insects\" width=\"130\" height=\"174\" \/><\/a>&#8220;I was born in an impoverished backwater, and could easily have lived out my days as an insignificant country girl,&#8221; a young woman modestly professes on stage as she receives the Akutagawa Prize, Japan&#8217;s highest literary honor for a debut author. Barely out of her teens, Toshiko Tomura has already enjoyed multiple, lavishly successful lives as her country&#8217;s finest actress, then director, becoming an internationally renowned designer, and now the most critically praised author for her eponymous\u00a0<em>The Book of Human Insects<\/em>. Dubbed the &#8220;Woman of Talent,&#8221; she has a few more accomplished incarnations yet to be revealed &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Achieving such celebrity status has, of course, come at a cost. Media darling that she is, Toshiko&#8217;s most intimate relationship is with a stooped wax figurine, housed in an otherwise vacant house, a remote refuge far away from her adoring audience&#8217;s prying eyes. As for her fellow, living human beings, they&#8217;re merely vessels of potential from which she can learn, mimic, steal &#8230; and worse. To live is to compete, and \u2013 as the body count tallies up (and up and up)\u00a0\u2013\u00a0for Toshiko, nothing will get in the way of winning.<\/p>\n<p>Except for the lack of smart phones and other techno-devices, one would never guess that this manga is more than four decades old! Even the early-1970s mod fashions seem to fit right into our 21st-century, image-obsessed contemporary society. Osamu Tezuka, revered as the godfather of manga and best known for creating the adorable <a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/2009\/05\/20\/astro-boy-by-osamu-tezuka-translated-by-frederik-l-schodt-lettering-and-retouch-by-digital-chameleon\/\"><em>Astro Boy<\/em><\/a>, was chillingly, inarguably ahead of his time. Who needs simplistic reality TV when you&#8217;ve got such a multi-pronged storyline enhanced with\u00a0this much calculated destruction? Turn off the electronics already\u00a0\u2013\u00a0get ready for a jolt of jarring intensity.<\/p>\n<p>To check out more of Tezuka&#8217;s titles on BookDragon, click <a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tag\/osamu-tezuka\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2012 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I was born in an impoverished backwater, and could easily have lived out my days as an insignificant country girl,&#8221; a young woman modestly professes on stage as she receives the Akutagawa Prize, Japan&#8217;s highest literary honor for a debut author. Barely out of her&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,73,76,66],"tags":[84,586,6608,13,78,129,217],"class_list":["post-21229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-fiction","category-graphic-novel-manga-manwha","category-japanese","category-translation","tag-betrayal","tag-book-of-human-insects","tag-bookdragon","tag-love","tag-mari-morimoto","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-osamu-tezuka"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Book of Human Insects by Osamu Tezuka, translated by Mari Morimoto - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-book-of-human-insects-by-osamu-tezuka-translated-by-mari-morimoto\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Book of Human Insects by Osamu Tezuka, translated by Mari Morimoto - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;I was born in an impoverished backwater, and could easily have lived out my days as an insignificant country girl,&#8221; a young woman modestly professes on stage as she receives the Akutagawa Prize, Japan&#8217;s highest literary honor for a debut author. Barely out of her...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-book-of-human-insects-by-osamu-tezuka-translated-by-mari-morimoto\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-06-21T13:27:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-09T03:57:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2013\/06\/Book-of-Human-Insects.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"948\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1247\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Book of Human Insects by Osamu Tezuka, translated by Mari Morimoto - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-book-of-human-insects-by-osamu-tezuka-translated-by-mari-morimoto\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Book of Human Insects by Osamu Tezuka, translated by Mari Morimoto - BookDragon","og_description":"&#8220;I was born in an impoverished backwater, and could easily have lived out my days as an insignificant country girl,&#8221; a young woman modestly professes on stage as she receives the Akutagawa Prize, Japan&#8217;s highest literary honor for a debut author. 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